Putting a Smile On
by WTFWonder
Summary: Nick Olsen is many things: a husband, a father, fired and a chronically, tragically good guy. This all changes upon meeting a happy, dapper clown in the road. ONESHOT


**Putting a Smile On**

By, Someone with Time on Their Hands

Summary: Nick Olsen is many things: a husband, a father, fired and a chronically, tragically good guy. This all changes upon meeting a happy, dapper clown in the road.

"Olsen.", an electricity-tinged voice said from the black abyss of a desk P.A. box. It was successfully unheard by the two men in the cubicle, one of whom was talking at roughly 120 miles per hour and the other leaning against an invoice and photo-covered bulletin board. Man number one was a relatively handsome man with dirty blond hair framing his face in a wildish cloud, making him look like a manic child rather than a man in his mid-twenties. He, like his fellow workers, was adorned in a polo-collared work shirt and tie, both items considerably askew compared to the rest of the collective. Every other sentence he had to giggle or lick his lips, his hands gesturing spastically every other syllable, prompting his companion to weave and duck.

Said companion was an older, plumper and somewhat greasier man with thinning mouse brown hair and a toady smirk on his face. His meaty arms were crossed leisurely and somehow triumphantly under his man breasts as he listened to his younger coworker with silent patronization. His side of the conversation didn't need much in the way of thought, just the odd "you don't say" and "what then" between the other man's pauses for air, and his continuous fleshy smile. He almost felt bad for the poor, blind sap. Almost. "You don't say, Nick.", he said for the twenty fifth time.

Nick took in a breath through open, upturned lips and shot his beaming black irises back to the older man, cheeks glowing pink. "I _do_ say so, Roger. Ellie's only six—_six_—and, and, and she read _Lord of the Flies_ cover to cover! And that was in only two days! Gaah, my kid's a mini Stephen Hawking stuck in the paltry dregs of first grade. The idiots there won't let her skip a single grade because they want to leech off her brilliance and show off what bright students _they_ make but--. But a few paychecks from today and that's over. Aw, Roger, it'll be perfect. Me and Jean'll move somewhere where bullet holes don't count as an apartment's ventilation, where Ellie will be bumped up to the third, fourth, hell, maybe fifth grade and not have to watch for strangers at recess. Jean won't have to work 'til ten anymore, ah ha, she'll never have to work again if I have anything to say about it."

He flopped back dreamily in his revolving chair and kicked himself in a giddy spin. The squeak of the chair and Nick's sigh covered the more pronounced, "_Olsen_."

Roger cocked his head to one side, his second chin moving with him. "You sound pretty optimistic, what're you going to do after this big move of yours? Rob a bank?" Nick snickered at that an peeked his tongue out of one corner of his mouth, one hand brushing a lock of hair from his face.

"Very funny. Despite all outward appearances, and I know there's quite a few, I'm a pretty smart guy." He neglected to mention his last IQ test's score, seeing as he could never remember the exact number. It always struck Nick as a tad embarrassing when he couldn't recall whether his score was 390 or 420 or whatever other number it had been. Sure, he could say that he knew it was over 300, but mentioning that aloud would prompt listeners' desire to know what the exact number was and not remembering it—well, it was socially awkward to say the least. Anyway. "I figure I can get a job making computers rather than just staring at them. Now I'm not George Lucas or anything, but I can make a radio out of a coffee can, two speakers and some wire. Ellie still uses it to pick up Radio Disney.", he said proudly. His shining eyes closed halfway, his grin growing softer and contemplating. "But I still need a few more paychecks to pool with Jean's money so we can actually move."

He blinked and jerked suddenly, the way a woman does when she makes a comment about her dieting in the presence of an overweight friend. The father looked up at Roger with panicked eyes, the older man raising his brow in confusion. "Not that I won't keep in contact!", he declared, hands up in an unneeded warding gesture, "I won't forget about you and the rest of the guys. If it weren't for you, and Lewis and Isaac and—well, everyone, ah, I don't know what I'd do." Nick gave his companion a genuine gold smile. "Especially you and Lewis, man. Lewis was the one to get me hooked up here, but you were the first one to say hello to me." '…_And I can't imagine why everyone keeps warning me to stay away from you._', he though silently.

He'd made a menagerie of friends at work with his open smiles, lightning quick humor, and his irrepressible urge to help. A computer broke down? He could fix it. Lost files X, Y and Z? He could make them appear like a rabbit from a top hat. Five minutes before the boss came to your cube for inspection? He'd strike up a conversation about how crappy the government was—Mr. Goldberg was an utter nut when it came to griping about the government—for half an hour before the manager realized he had to keep moving. He was the epitome of optimism and good guyery everyone wanted to meet at some point in their life. "_Ol-SEN._"

"I think the boss man's calling you, Nick.", Roger pointed out astutely. Nick whipped around in his chair and pressed the reply button.

"Sorry, Mr. Goldberg, I'm coming right now." The little red button popped back up with a _click_ and the man spun around before hopping to his feet. "Gotta' go. Hope I wasn't late on anything."

"Nah, with your record? You could have work late from last year, and that guy would keep you. Especially after that new cell phone design you sent him. iPhone's going to kiss its ass goodbye thanks to that little number."

"And I want to thank you for giving it to Goldberg. I would've handed it over myself, but I _had_ to stay overnight when Ellie broke her arm and--." Roger plopped a meaty hand on the other man's shoulder, acidic friendliness leaking from his pores.

"Anything for you buddy. Now get moving, I'll keep your seat warm." So saying the human butterball plopped himself contently in the revolving chair, the seat crying in protest. With a quick goodbye Nick vanished from his cubicle. He'd only see that same flimsy cube one more time.

XXX

Halfway to the boss' office and three quarters of the way through humming, "Rock Candy Mountain", a second hand dropped on his shoulder, this one considerably thinner, stronger and tinted a dark chocolate brown. Mr. Olsen glanced up to see who he would soon identify as his only best friend, thick Cupid's bow lips drawn in a sad line to match the eyes. "Lewis? What's wrong?" Lewis began to say something and then choked it with a clearing of his throat. He stepped directly into Nick's path, putting his empty hand on the other shoulder and Nick began to truly worry. He'd known Lewis since Ellie was three and a half, where she'd played with Lewis' kid at the park.

The two fathers had sat and shot the bull on one bench while the two mothers talked HGTV and first words on another, all four parents watching their kids shoot down the long, curling slide. It had sparked a longstanding kinship between both families, leading to Lewis putting in the good word for Nick to get him hired when his current place of employment foreclosed. By now, both men could feel the other's joy, sorrow, anger, annoyance, confusion and/or laughter coming a mile away. Right now Nick was feeling major tragedy vibes coming off his friend and his first thought was that something had happened to his wife or kid. Simultaneously, Lewis felt the concern and confusion vibes coming off his friend and knew the man hadn't a clue.

He had to tell him. Tell him before Goldberg did.

"Lewis? What's up?" Had to tell him before… Nick put his own hand on Lewis' shoulder.

He couldn't tell him.

"What is--? Hff! Uh…" Lewis had promptly clasped his arms around the other man in a bear hug, his wedding ring glinting in the overhead lights. "I appreciate the gesture, man, but I'm married.", Nick managed in an attempt to lighten whatever his friend was about to blurt. Lewis laughed hoarsely into his shoulder and pulled away, wiping a wet dot from the corner of his eye. "So, what is it? Is everything okay at home?" That nearly killed the darker man and he had to stifle the urge to really cry for the man. He swallowed sourly and smiled as convincingly as he could.

"No, no, everything's fine, other than my mother-in-law continuing her God-given duty of bitchery and mooching. I just think my wife's PMS is starting to transfer."

Nick knew Clinton couldn't tell a worse lie, but he let it slide. He could ask later at lunch when there wouldn't be endless aisles of cubicles listening in. The blonde smiled agreeably and shot back, "I can't wait for the mood swing where you start yelling at me to get you chocolate."

"They had better be caramel-filled or so help me, your ass is sleeping on the couch." They chuckled at this, both men trying and failing to mask what they were really thinking. Goodbyes were exchanged and they went their separate ways, one to the boss, the other to the water cooler. In perfect synch, Nick thought about how to pry open Lewis' troubles and help fix them, whilst Lewis wondered if his friend would ever speak to him after withholding the grim message. As he stared at his Dixie cup of water, he became increasingly sure he wouldn't be forgiven, but he'd give Roger as much hell as he could muster just the same.

XXX

Nick knocked on the door and Goldberg's grisly voice beckoned through the wood. "That you, Olsen?"

"Yeeup."

"Get in here, kid." With the exception of Roger and anyone else there with crow's feet and a mountain of pudge, Mr. Goldberg called everyone "kid." Nick pushed the door in and took in the four huge, dark walls of the office and the handful of plaques and awards adorning them. In the center of the room and pushed up near the back wall was Mr. Phillip Goldberg behind his monstrous desk. He was a mass of crew cut grey hair, dark wrinkles, and the kind of padded muscles an old man with an addiction to his old militaristic build has. His hands were folded atop the ink blotter, the bones of his knuckles standing out like little mountains, and his grey eyes zeroed in on Nicholas J. Olsen like tiny metal hawk eyes.

Nick blinked and closed the door behind him almost self-consciously. Now he was worried, scared even, as he sat in the single, lonely chair before the desk. He would've been remarkably calmer had Goldberg looked angry; Goldberg always wore a perpetual scowl with only the rare barking laugh or sharky grin to break up the monotony. Right now Goldberg was wearing a face Nick thought he'd never see. He was wearing a mask of sorrow, of depression, of immense regret and…and… Some horrible, understanding wheel in the back of Nick's mind began to turn on a rusted spool.

A memory of Jean's face flashed through his head; the looks she'd given him in her pregnant months every time he came home burnt out and so delusionally optimistic from work, declaring life would get better. She had always agreed, always supported him and given him all the love she could at home, but seated right next to the love in her eyes was the…

The pity. The same pity in Goldberg's eyes. The same pity that he knew lingered in his own eyes every time he secretly visited the dog pound after work, looking at the abused or newborn canines that he could never afford on the Olsens' apartment salary (he and Ellie were praying for a dog as some birthday or Christmas gift in the future). He would spend an extra amount of time looking at the disabled dogs with three legs, or one eye, or savage scars defacing them, cursing their abusers and pitying the furry victims. It was a pity born of the fact that he knew those deformed dogs would never find a home short of the domiciles of loving old ladies or dog fanatics, or the dreaded back room and its needle full of everlasting sleep. The pity for those who don't know any, and will never get, better.

Goldberg sighed. Nick blinked and swallowed the, '_You wanted to see me?_' that had almost popped out. "You're a smart man, Olsen. I knew a guy a lot like you in the marines, always smiling and playing the fool for the guys to laugh at. But whenever we had some downtime he would just sit by himself, reading advanced physics and building a better rabbit trap to catch three little Bugs Bunnies at a time for dinner. Funny, goofy, _brilliant_ man. Personally, I think you're smarter." A chord of relaxation began to settle around Nick's shoulders. Maybe this whole thing was just to discuss his new phone design. Maybe.

The pity, though, mustn't forget the pity.

Luckily, rampant optimism was a great, solid wall between his logic and the rest of his brain. "Thank you.", he answered for lack of something better to say.

"You're welcome, kid. But…"

"But?"

Goldberg sighed even heavier, his fingers clenching into his knuckles like flesh clamps. "But you need to know that, Olsen, so you don't let this dwell on you." The harsh, knowing wheel in his mind began to spin faster, the wall of optimism taking on the wheel's crippling rust, crumbling.

'_This is going to be joke isn't it? I haven't done anything wrong, said anything to offend him or anyone else. I know I haven't. Why would I be—be demoted or…or anything else? This has to be a joke. A cruel joke that will be made funny by me getting a raise or a promotion or an invitation to get a beer with him and some of the guys and--._' Lewis flashed through his mind now. '_It has to be a joke._'

"Mr. Goldberg, if there's something I did wrong, I--." Goldberg held up his hand.

"You didn't do a single thing wrong, kid. You're aces and any place would be lucky to have you. But—God, I thought I'd never have to feed this line of b.s. to anyone working under me—the economy is tight these days and…sacrifices have to be made." Nick refused to acknowledge the pounding hammer of realization trying to break his wall of optimism. There was no way such a thing could really be happening to him, not when he was so close to the finish line.

'_Just a joke! This has to be a joke! Hell, I'd laugh like a fool if Ashton Kutcher popped out of a desk drawer and screamed "you been punk'd!" Honest, I would!_'

"Olsen—_Nick_. I don't want to do this, but I have to let go whole waves of people just for the business to stay afloat. Nick,"

'_Please no. Please no. Please no. Please no. Please, please, pleeease, let this be a joke!_'

"I have to let _you_ go." With that, the wall disintegrated into so many fragile flecks of ravaged hope. All at once the words splashed into his brain and sent their long-reaching, corrosive fingers through him, melting everything inside him into scoured oblivion. For a few seconds there was blank, black emptiness in him, a faint mute ringing in his ears. Finally, thoughts and emotions began to bud back into life, all of them rattling and electrocuting him. Hysteria, rage and stuttering confusion bubbled in verbal form just behind his lips and callused hands. Beyond the coherence of mind and emotion was something hot and scalding; a thin, whipping, coiling wire that tickled the back of his mind from time to time. This something prompted Nick to lower his head in sorrow and contemplation, shading his eyes. Goldberg assumed it was only the outer effect of the news' impact, while he couldn't see Nick's dark, shiny eyes snapping back and forth in their sockets.

Strong, metal frames around the pictures and awards.

The lamp on the desk.

Pens.

Glass paperweight shaped like a star.

Small iron figure of the Statue of Liberty.

Switchblade in his pocket.

Two deep wooden drawers that could fit a human head and half a human neck quite nicely.

Yes.

No.

'_No. No! What am I thinking? I don't even know why he's letting me go. Did I--?_' "Did I not do something the others did? Why are you trying to give me the boot?", he implored in a shaky voice.

"I'm not _trying_ anything, I _have_ to let you go. Your sector only really needs one worker, and Skimworth beat you to the punch with that phone design." _Click._ Reality slipped into the seamless, forgotten spot that had sat reserved for it so long.

"Skimworth. As in Roger Skimworth?" '_He wouldn't have. He couldn't have._'

"He's the only Skimworth here. I'm sad to say that seniority and that fluke of an amazing phone schematic counts more than personality to my higher ups. I kept telling those idiots to meet you two in person, but they were too busy playing with other people's lives. Point being that despite my wishes, Roger's staying and you're out of here. I'm sorry, Nick. You don't know how badly I am."

Nick didn't hear him. "You say Roger made this phone design? Did he explain the machinations of it? How the features will work? How minutes will become virtually free? How they can transfer energy to other appliances? How they'll be invulnerable to impact and liquid? Did he explain that Mr. Goldberg?" A twinkle of anger sparked in the older man's eyes.

"I knew Skimworth was too smart to be a genius. Should've known when the big wigs started singing the weasel's praises. God _damn_ it." Veined hands clamped into short silver locks and Nick gulped on one last ray of hope.

"Does that mean my pink slipping gets pulled?"

"No, Olsen. It still stands and I'm too rip roaring pissed to explain why. Ask Roger, I'm sure the smug little toad'll be more than happy to brag. Oh, and if your knuckles accidentally find their way into his teeth, I'll see to it that everyone is too preoccupied checking their nails to notice."

XXX

Still sitting in Nick's revolving chair, was Roger, nudging himself back and forth with one foot. In his hand was a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Olsen holding up their daughter by her toddler-sized hands, all three smiling. Roger was analyzing the finer shadows on Jean's cleavage when a real shadow washed over his back. He spun around with his same toady grin in place, beady eyes crinkled with greasy smugness. "So how'd it go, champ?"

Nick's eyes were wide open, the obsidian spots of his irises ringed with white, and his sandy brows were clenched in a line of anguish and unfettered hate. Both hands were curled into granite blocks at his sides and one could almost feel his discipline straining like strings of dental floss holding back rabid elephants. "How and why, Roger. Now."

Roger grinned and snorted, a piggish, snotty sound. "The problem with you 'inspired' types is that you're only smart when it comes to invention and art and history and science, but when it comes to common sense you're all idiots. How did I do it? I read through your notes and slapped my name on it. The reason you're still fired and I'm still hired is because I promised a fatter cut for the company's heads than you ever would have. There's the how, Einstein. As for the why," he flicked the photograph out of his hand and let it flutter to the floor, "you outgrew your usefulness.

"I knew the whole economic crisis deal would come knocking eventually and despite the fun I had tugging you around like a blind dog, I like keeping my job more. The phone theft was just insurance—would've been too much trouble getting anyone to believe you were stealing office supplies. Point being: I win, you lose, the world keeps on spinning. For me anyway. Right about now I think you're ready to explode, maybe knock a few of my teeth out. But you won't, will you?" Roger stood at his full stout height, ratty eyes looking up into younger, more vibrant orbs. "Know how I know?" Nick said nothing and clenched his fists tighter, two bony pops echoing from his knuckles. Roger didn't blink. "Because even worse than your utter obliviousness, your biggest flaw is that you're nice. You couldn't take an insult to someone's face, let alone a punch--."

It was at that point that Roger saw the light shift in his ex-coworker's eyes, saw the black of his irises seem to almost expand. For a moment he was reminded of _Jaws_ and how round, doll-like and blood hungry the shark's eyes had been. In that iota of a second both men knew what the other was seeing: Roger was seeing that vicious, rainbow-colored wire dancing in the black windows of Nick's eyes, and Nick in turn saw the look of realization dawn on the portly man's face. '_That's right Porky, dogs _do_ bite after enough rocks and sticks are thrown at them. Care to find out if this one's rabid?_' A sudden image of the dog from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons ripping Porky Pig's guts out popped into his head. '_A help—a help—a he-he—call the police!_' It was outrageously funny in an anything-sounds-funny-at-three-in-the-morning way. Nick giggled shrilly and clasped his hands against his chest and stomach. Roger's eyes boggled up at him in increasing worry; had he ever heard him laugh like that? Had he ever heard any sane man break into giggles like that?

"Olsen?" As if upon hearing a trigger word Nick's eyes snapped open, mouth still frozen in a smiling rictus. For six seconds Nicholas Olsen stood frozen with that expression, Mr. Skimworth feeling little Roger and his two buddies shrinking as time went on.

"Get out, Roger.", he said in a bubbly tone. In another situation he would've sounded like a college boy laughing off a prank by his roommates. In this situation he sounded like a man in desperate need of anti-psychotics. Roger shot out of the cubicle as fast as a man of his sausage-y proportions could muster, leaving Nick to stand pillar straight for another eight seconds. He blinked and the smile fell off like a car window toy that lost its suction power and he got down on his knees. His hand went mechanically under his desk, grabbing the photo of him, Jean and Ellie and an empty cardboard box at the same time.

His pictures went in first, the silver framed photo of Ellie's first birthday going in gently, with the glass facing down. Next came his Joke of the Day tear away calendar, his stress ball with innumerable crescent nail marks in it, the newspaper he had been doodling on today—useful for when the computer programs were moving at quadriplegic sloth pace--, and last but not least his lighter. On the bottom were the initials _J.K._, one side was _OMNI_ and on the other was _FLAGR, _both carved in thin, stick lettering: "all burn", or "burn all." He'd found it on a sidewalk outside his high school and it still worked. Some poor teenage boy with delusions of intensity had probably carved all three on the otherwise pricy silver lighter. Nick cast an appraising gaze on all the still-thumbtacked invoices and memos on his wall.

_Flick._

_Fshh._

_Fwooom._

Just three little sounds with such an enormous, therapeutic effect--. "Ow. Ow!" He clicked the lighter closed and moved it from under his left, slightly singed hand. The man quickly shoved the thing in his pocket. '_What is wrong with me today?_' Stress. Lots of stress was all. Anyone would have it in his situation, and like with anyone else it would pass. It would, really.

_Flick._

_Fshh._

_Fwooom._

Really. "Nick?" After the man landed back in his skin, Nick turned and looked up. Lewis was silhouetted against the energy efficient incandescent lights like a leafless oak against the sun, his hands playing anxiously against each other. "I…I'm sorry, Nick. I'm so, so sorry. I wanted to tell you before Goldberg dropped the bomb, but I choked and—and I'm sorry, man. You don't deserve this in the least, and if even an ounce of my belief in karma is justified, Roger will be run over by a sixteen wheeler on his way out the door. God, I can't believe I tried to make a joke out of this…"

Lewis rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and fidgeted with his feet. In the meantime Nick had shifted to sit Indian style, waiting patiently for his friend to rake his words into the air. "What I mean to say is, I want to help. I want to do anything I can to talk with Jean, to get you a new job, anything I can do. Anything at all." Mr. Olsen could practically read the words I MEAN IT printed in 20 point font all over the other father's face.

"Okay, first thing you can do." Nick held out his right hand. "Help me up." Lewis wrapped his chocolate fingers over his friend's peachy knuckles and pulled him up. Nick promptly bent back down and hefted up his box of personal belongings. "Second, help me flip off all of these incredibly important documents." The pair proceeded to give great big Tweety birds to the official papers and notices Nick would never see or touch again. "Third, you can spit in every beverage Roger gets along with licking all his food. As for the rest," the dirty blonde shrugged with one shoulder, "do what you've always done for me. Be my friend."

"I will, Nick, but I want to do more. I want to do something to make a difference for you. You--."

"Will be alright. I'm a big boy, Lewis, I can handle this. Yeah, I'm mad, I'm frustrated and by all accounts dreading telling Jean the move is postponed, but I'll be okay." He punctuated this with his Open Chummy Smile, patent pending, and this seemed to relax Lewis a tad.

"I know you will be. I just want to be there to be a sympathetic ear and help you--."

"I know you will be. But I'm okay for now."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

XXX

Twenty minutes later on the side of an empty road, Nick Olsen was busy being okay in his car, screaming, cursing, crying, punching, pulling at his hair and cackling as best as any perfectly hunkydory man could. Five minutes of frenzying later and he'd reclined the driver's seat back, his hands trenched in the wavy locks of sandy hair. He dragged the butts of his palms against his temple and kept his eyes gently shut, watching fragments of color and light float against the dark inner lids. For a moment he let everything soak in about his physical being. The hoarse throat, the sore, red cheeks, the burning eyes, the throbbing head, the hummingbird heartbeat and every other post-tantrum pain gnawed at, and faintly tickled him.

He wallowed in the physical sensations as he let his arms flop to his sides, opening his eyes to take in the beautiful view of the car ceiling. The only sounds he could hear were the slowing rush of blood in his ears and the hollow _tec, toc, tup_ of a plastic cup skipping over the asphalt of the long, straight road to the city. Nick's place of business, or what had been, was isolated from the rest of civilization by a lonely stretch of road and pine trees that had a grand total of two road signs and all manner of hidden hovels in the woods. On more than one occasion Nick had thought he'd seen people scuttling in the shadows of the pines, but had dismissed it. Until he heard "Dueling Banjos" he wouldn't be worried. All the same, Nick quickly adjusted the seat to erect position and dug out his cell phone.

The sooner he told Jean the better. He turned to look out his window at the barren road and focused intently on the happy idea of some crazy hermit rushing out of the woods and killing him to spare the pain of the call. "Come on, I'm sitting right out in the open, nutjobs. My doors are unlocked. I only have a lighter and a switchblade. There's cash in my wallet, plus I have a wife and kid—you couldn't ask for a better victim unless I had boobs out to the steering wheel and a 'please slaughter' sign around my neck. Please?" He waited ten Mississippis just for good measure and gave up, flipping his cell open. '_The tubby bastard will be selling my cell phone inside of a month. A week if he's lucky._'

And breathing.

Nick blinked and shook his head at the phone in his hand. He raised a brow at the _Call Missed_ sign on the screen. His thumb maneuvered the device into voicemail and listened.

"_Hey, Nicky! I know you won't hear this 'til later, but your work phone keeps telling me your disconnected for some reason. Freaky, but that's besides the point, I have great news. The school just called me about Ellie and guess what? Are you guessing? Give up? Our girl, our baby, our little prodigy used a series of poems by Robert Frost and her analyses of them for show and tell. I swear, I had no idea about it, but the teacher called me about it and she said she'd put in a good word about moving her up a grade. Granted, we both know she could be whipping them in middle school, but this is a start. After the move, she'll be set for the rest of elementary and at least sixth grade. Just wanted to spread the good news. Oh! P.S., we're having Scooby Doo macaroni and cheese for dinner whether you like it or not, Ellie's choice. See you at home, sexy._"

The message ended and Nick stared disbelievingly at the evil little device. He took in a deep breath and sighed it out his nose, letting his thumb click the phone closed. "Telling Jean now would be like kicking a nun carrying a pregnant woman, carrying a newborn kitten. Ugh." Nick chucked the cell unceremoniously into the driver's compartment and slammed the thing shut. He looked out at the trees dismally, and turned the same giddy gaze on the digital readout of his clock. 1:23 PM. Lunchtime. "My appetite, I can feel it growing. Heheh.", he joked with lackluster joviality. On impulse he pulled out his wallet and cocked a brow at the two tens in the leather fold.

"One last fling with Ronald McDonald won't kill you." '_Lazy, good for nothin' clown._' With an image of a depressing meal of a double cheeseburger and fries dancing in his head, Nick shifted the car into drive and began the long trek back to town. 45 mph jumped to 50 mph, which jumped to 57 mph, which shot to 70 mph. All the while the trees kept on coming, as did the naked road and its sprinkling of litter. On and on and on, with his speed rising. His obsidian eyes stared straight on, both orbs constantly twitching in their sockets to find something, anything, hard enough to crash and burn into. He could vanish in a puff of ash and Jean and Ellie would get enough insurance to carry them through most of their daughter's adolescence.

To up his chances he even closed his eyes, his fingers clenched in twin vices on the steering wheel. "Please God, let me crash into something good. Let me crash, please. Just one measly crash. Crash. Crash. _Crash._ _Crash!_ _Cra--!_"

_Ka-THWUMPH!_

_Screeeech!_

Nick's eyes were the size of globes and filling up just as much space on his face, foot glued to the brakes and hands welded to the steering wheel. His eyes shot up to the car's ceiling and in a squeak he uttered, "I meant something solider and less alive, but thanks for trying." He fumbled with the rearview mirror until he pulled the thing off. The man cursed and tore his seatbelt out of its buckle before shoving his way out of the door. A couple stumbled steps and a near faceplant later he was standing with his legs in an awkward toddler stance, just keeping his balance. Then he saw what he'd hit and his knees met the asphalt with two starbursts of faraway pain. Nick made a silly noise like a chipmunk being goosed and his hands dragged themselves down the sides of his face.

Lying facedown in the road was a clown. An honest to goodness party clown with his long, lanky body in a twisted mangled shape no living human could attain. From what Nick could tell at his distance, the clown was dressed in a purple suit, an orange undershirt and a speck of a green tie poking out from under him. His face looked to be buried in the road, the white greasepaint of it showing beneath the mussed crown of evergreen hair. Still clutched in one of the man's gloved hands was a gaggle of colorful balloons. He'd run over and killed a clown, in the middle of nowhere. Dead, broken and bloody--. Wait. '_Wait, he's all twisted up, sure, but I don't see any blood. Is there a chance he's still alive? Is there?_' Of course there was, so said the Optimistic Wall.

That in mind, Nick scrambled to his feet and sprinted to the vibrant body in the road. He halted in a crouch and flipped the other man onto his back, braced for any number of gruesome injuries on the front. Surprisingly, there was nothing but a few rivulets of blood running from the clown's nostrils, ears and the corners of his already crimson lips. And the fact that his pelvis was twisted almost completely around, couldn't overlook that. Nick pressed his fingers to the jester's neck, praying for a pulse. He waited, one, two, three, four seconds and there was nothing. Dead as a pie throwing doornail. Dead. As in manslaughter. As in he'd just murdered someone while driving blind.

"I have to call someone. 911, I have to call them. Call them now, and--." '_And get yourself sued? Disgrace Jean like that? Let Ellie know Daddy dearest lost his job and killed a man in the same day? You don't even have any money to get sued for, you suicidal imbecile._' Which begged the question of what the hell he was supposed to do to make this problem go away. '_You're not stupid, Nicky boy. What are deep dark woods for, after all?_' The hot, wild wire cracked like a whip in the back of his mind and he took a fevered look at the magnificent shade in the trees, all that dirt and brush… The whip cracked again at the edges of his skull and he found himself loving and hating the tingle of it.

His tongue slipped wetly and quietly along his pink lips and lingered between his bare teeth like a muscle rudder. The wire curled back and prepared to snap at him again when he promptly smothered it with the mental equivalent of a pour of concrete. "Once again, Nick, what the living hell are you _thinking_?" He promptly clocked himself in the head with his fist and stood. "There should be enough bars out here to get--." At that moment the clown decided he was tired of holding his balloon and his fingers flopped open like the legs of a dead tarantula, sending ovals of color into the air. "Uh!", Nick gasped intelligently and made a swipe at the strings.

His fingers clamped around the strings in a perfect catch and for a moment he was posed in a postcard stance; standing on one foot with one arm outstretched behind him, the other reaching out to hold the balloons, like he was about to float away. He began to fall forward. Pinwheeling his arms wasn't helping and he was heading for a flattened face when something clutched the back of his shirt. Everything in his ribcage shrank in on itself as his mind snapped to the only logical reason. With nitrogen in his bloodstream he put his feet down, the something released his shirt and he turned.

There was the clown, standing poker straight, one hand on his hip and the other still out and uncurled from releasing the younger man's shirt, smiling. "Hiya!" That one sunny greeting hit Nick like a jolt from a car battery and he jumped, losing his balance and the balloons at the same time. The clown caught both. "You're a jumpy one aren't you? I'm the one who got run over and _you_ look like you're on the verge of a heart attack. Ha, ha, ha, haaa!", he laughed in a booming, banshee laugh.

"I—you're—there, there was no pulse. I-I didn't feel your pulse and on the ground you were all…all.." '_Twisted into a human pretzel and turning both directions._'

"Looked like roadkill minus my guts splashed everywhere, right? It pays to know how to relocate bones.", he let go of Nick's shirt and shrugged his shoulder, resulting in a monstrous _pop_, "Thank that and your poor aim for it. If you really wanted to splatter me you should have turned a few seconds before the hit." The clown crossed his arms and drummed his empty fingers with mocking chastisement. "You kids today, always going for the quick thrill and no pride in the kill, tsk, tsk." A span of silence passed while Nick gawked and the clown continued to look playfully disappointed. The latter cocked one green brow and cracked a smile before bursting into giggles. Nick nearly spasmed when the jester punched him in the shoulder, still snickering. "Lighten up, pally! Whatever you're drinking, switch to decaf. Ha, ha!"

At last the ex-employee's tongue lassoed a handful of words and he stammered, "I, ah, are—are you okay? Sorry, stupid question, but is there anything broken? Your, ah, head's kind of bleeding like stuck tomato." Nick mentally kicked himself for falling back into that damn 'ah' thing. Every time he fumbled his words he dropped 'ah' into every sentence. He watched as the clown cocked his white head and put an experimental fingertip beneath his nostrils. When the finger came back bloody the clown gave a noncommittal 'hmm' and pressed his finger down on one nostril and then the other, snorting two squirts of red out of his white nose.

"Thought I felt my nose running. As for the rest," he reached into his front breast pocket and pulled out the tip of one of those ongoing handkerchief trains, wiping his ears, nose and mouth with it, "I can still hear and the blood will just save me the trouble of reapplying my lipstick." The clown then proceeded to stretch his arms and legs, twist and turn his waist and rotate his neck. "Not sure if anything's broken, except my brain, but it was that way to begin with."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you right after using you for a speed bump. You need to go to a hospital at least. Oh God, I'm so sorry, I never meant to--," '_Take someone else with me. …Maybe Roger._' Nick caught the jester looking down on him with a puckish gaze, red eyes glittering. Red? No, they were green. Green as his hair.

"That's easy enough to tell, seeing as you had a choice of speeding off with my pasty carcass in the road or chucking me in the woods for the local wildlife to have. After all, you coming back to check on me, ready to call the meat wagon to save a guy who might be one of those sue-a-holics. Ooh, that bit scared you didn't it? Relax, keed, I'm not a sue happy schmuck like the run-of-the-mill roadkill victim. I consider the bunch of them money-grubbing whiners. Harrumph."

"So you're not going to..?"

"Nope."

'_Sweet victory! Sweet, glorious victory from a spontaneously appearing clown that moves at silent light speed from sprawled, mangled mess to over six feet of perfect posture!_' Best not to dwell on that. "Th-Thank you, but you should still go to the hospital, Mr. aah, what's your name?", he asked with his fingers twitching and curling. This had to be one of the most awkward conversations of his life, not counting the time he'd tried to explain to Ellie why Mommy and Daddy screamed in their room at night. Nick raised a curious brow at what he could tell was difficultly suppressed giggles on the clown's long, sharp face.

"Oh, I'm just a nameless joker ambling through life."

"So should I just call you Mr. Anonymous?"

"Howsabout this? If I can guess your name, I'll tell you my own. I'm a nut, I know, but a harmless nut I promise." The joker leaned forward confidentially and Nick felt the fluttering urge to lean '_Run,_' back. His lavender glove raised up in a vertical wall at one corner of his ruby mouth in a hush-hush gesture and whispered, "Although confidentially my cork gun is really a stunted AK-47." He then winked exaggeratedly and Nick surprised himself by laughing honestly at the joke. "Now, first guess, I want to saaay…Jack?" Nick told him no and had to do a mental double take when he realized the other man was walking sprightly to the shotgun side of the car. He galloped to the driver's side and noted to himself how peculiar that voice was.

It was the kind of voice you knew as a distinct actor's or comedian's tone, a bit high and very theatrical. And his laughter was a fiery, braying thing that was like something you knew had to be synthesized in a sound lab, yet it came bubbling so easily out of that wide, red smile. The clown had an incredible amount of smile lines at the ends of his lips that turned into stark arrows on the white skin, bunching at the high cheekbones and crinkling the bright eyes. Eyes that were no doubt honed in the ways of sifting through audiences and finding the best people to mock or compliment. As they opened their respective doors the nameless harlequin seemed to realize the impracticality of a cloud of balloons in the vehicle. He shrugged and threw them lose with a stage flourish, the rainbow of helium disappearing into the sky. Even that small gesture showed off the air of thesbianism in the taller, makeup clad man; the way his fingers uncurled, how his back arched like a feline, and the way his face stretched and expressed to almost cartoonish proportions.

"I thought that was a wedding band on your finger, but if you're going to give me the eye all the way to the hospital…", he said with a flutter of lashes. Nick blinked and realized he'd been gawking at the other man.

"Sorry, didn't mean to stare." He slipped back into his seat, the clown doing likewise.

"Well, other than my inescapable beauty, I _do_ look like Ronald McDonald and Bozo's illegitimate offspring. People are supposed to stare at me, Jack." Nick put the car into drive and let a corner of his mouth quirk up.

"It's not Jack.", he reminded. The vehicle strolled forward at a less lethal speed and the pine trees began to slide past. The road was empty once again, but the younger man was sure to keep an eye out for any rogue party clowns. Speaking of which, why on Earth was there a lanky clown in purple tails and spats meandering through pine trees a hundred miles from everywhere but a filthy city? Was he walking to his own car? If so why take the ride with him? Was he walking home maybe? All these questions and his eerie good health and nonchalance of riding with a stranger who'd nearly killed him all smacked of too much surreality for the blonde man. He could all but see the hot, colorful wire quirk into a question mark as if to ask what was wrong with a little oddity? Just the same Mr. Olsen flexed his legs just to feel the pressure of his knife and lighter against his thighs. That established he could ask, "If you don't mind the asking of your near-manslaughterer, why were you out here in the middle of nowhere?"

Nick saw from his peripheral vision that the joker had turned to face him, slicking some stray, kinky hairs back into his pomaded 'do. The clown raised a smug emerald brow and laughed, "You think I was out there Gacy-ing, don't you, Joseph? You coulroracist. Ha! But if you must know, I had an engagement for a _big boy_ birthday party. You know, one of those dirty joke and ladies-in-bikinis parties a guy can only throw when you're isolated or rich enough that it doesn't matter. Would've been _oodles _of fun to watch them caw and elbow each other over the plain Jane lewdnesses." The joker said this in a tone as dry as crackers in the Sahara Desert, his red—green, they were green—eyes rolling dismally in his skull. Nick felt a near physical tug on his lips as they turned up in a smile, his dark eyes glimpsing the dour scowl of his companion.

'_He might be lying. He's probably lying. Who the heck lives way out here that has enough civilization to call and hire an entertainer? And how'd he get there in the first place, a clown car? Take him to the hospital if you need to, Nick, but be smart. Not too friendly, don't get lulled in. You know where that got you? Driving home at lunchtime to tell your wife you've been chucked out of the job by a backstabbing--._' "Your thrill, it overwhelms me." He watched as the jester slapped a hand melodramatically against his forehead and groaned.

"If I had to hear that pig's voice in person, cackling like a buffoon with his booze buddies and slapping buxom women's rears, for _all three blasted hours _I think I really would've snapped and noosed the lot of them with my hanky chain and got off scot-free." He wiggled his gloved fingers at Nick with a grin. "No fingerprints. And I'd have gone home with the pride of knowing I'd, oh there's a term I'm looking for…" The painted man groped the air in a grasping move, trying to coerce an answer from himself or the listening driver.

"Improving the genetic stock of humanity?" The joker clapped enthusiastically and laughed.

" 'Improving the genetic stock of humanity!' I love it, Joe. It is Joe, right?"

"Nope."

"Darn. Well, whatever your name is--I'll call you Heath for now, the J's just aren't working--I appreciate the lift. Now when that greasy lug calls to complain I can tell him I was kidnapped and it couldn't be helped. Thank goodness I'll never have to meet the toad in person. You know I honestly tried to call my taxi back, but my phone wouldn't get a single bar. Ironically enough, you're a lifesaver."

'_Taxi. That was how he got here. Perfect sense. Taxis take people just about anywhere; they'd drive across the ocean floor if you paid them enough. There's nothing off about him, he's just a nameless clown is all. Nothing unsettling whatsoever._' So why didn't he see a yellow speck driving off into the distance when he plowed into the man? '_Panic, imbecile. The taxi must've vanished while you were trying to twist yourself around to see him._' Besides, walking and talking or not, the man had been hit by a car pushing 90 mph. What could he pull? Bleeding on him? At once the iconic Black Knight scene of Monty Python yore snapped into his mind. "Heheheheh! Aha, ha..!"

"What's so funny, Heathy?" A small blush spread on Nick's cheekbones, nearly blurting the fact that he'd been laughing at a combo of his suspicion and a decapitated knight to his companion. Nick cleared his throat and risked turning to face the clown. The road wasn't empty for nothing after all.

'_Empty of everything but marauding party clowns._' "I was just thinking about how I've had a bit of trouble with greasy man-toads today, myself. And my name isn't Heath."

The joker made a quick hunch and scowl as he muttered, "Darn it. So," his posture returned to serpentine perfection and he steepled his fingers, "what's the deal with _your_ boil of a man?" Nick could have told him a number of things. Nick could have changed the subject. Nick could have said it wasn't important. Nick could have lied. Nick could have said nothing at all. Nick _could_ have done those things. But an hour later…

XXX

"…and you should've _seen_ the grin on his face! It looked like he not only ate shit, but always had a urine and discharge cocktail to follow!", he yelled hoarsely at the smiling harlequin. His throat had gone screaming-sore again and his face was a giant cherry. For the past hour he had been pouring out his sob story to the stranger who had taken it all in willingly and sympathetically. To be honest, it seemed like the clown had been ravenous for his narration and threw in constant annotations to keep the blonde's hackles raised.

"Let me guess, crooked up in one corner to show some plaque-y teeth, a blob of face fat hanging over like a cheek and his eyebrows doing that squiggly V thing? Like so?" Nick turned to see the joker giving a spot on imitation of Roger's repugnant grin; at least as spot on as someone with a lean face like his could produce. Nick pulled both hands off the steering wheel and pointed his index fingers at the clown almost triumphantly. He'd had the car on cruise control for the past twenty minutes seeing as there hadn't been a single other vehicle approaching or passing the entire way.

"That's it exactly! Now usually, I'm a very, ah, smiley guy. Whether it's a happy kid, or smiling at a good joke, or some lunatic laughing at the pictures in his head—well, I'm for the whole sunny, bright side, laugh and the world laughs with you thing. But Roger's smile… Roger's smile just vacuumed out and obliterated what I liked about smiling. It was like he took Groucho Marx, dipped him in acid and turned him into Larry the Cable Guy." Nick grinned at the exaggerated gasp and flinch of his passenger. The colorful man had his hands pressed to his whitened cheeks, ruby—emerald, _emerald_—eyes wide.

"_That_ bad?"

"That bad. It was only the smile that got me pissed too. He went on in this mini-tangent about how naive and goody-goody I was, that I was too Mr. Nice Guy do anything and, damn him, he was right, but I still managed to scare him out of my office. …What?" Nick found his eyes locked with the clown's with the latter's eyelids half shut and his red lips a shiny, crimson slit of a grin. Ice and fire vied for dominance on Mr. Olsen's spine as it shuddered. All at once he felt like a mouse just realizing he'd been carrying on banter about the weather with a hungry cat. The harlequin blinked.

"You say you scared him out. How'd you do it, Caesar? Threaten to bust his teeth in? Say he'd pay for what he did to you? Swear a vendetta? What was it that scared him away if you supposedly didn't do a thing?" Nick could all but hear the insinuating '_hmmmm?_' the clown wanted to use. He gulped sorely and put a hand back on the steering wheel, trying to anchor himself so he wouldn't drift into the wire's lasso.

"I don't know. I just stared him down, I guess."

"You can't lie, Caesar." The joker shook his head good naturedly as he said this. A few wisps of green hair fell around his sharp, bright face as he did.

"That's not my name."

"You see? Any number of times you could have said a name I guessed was real, and the game would be over. But you can't lie. It isn't in your nature, because, as the wart Roger and no doubt anyone else knows, you're a man of your word." Here the clown raised his digits to make finger quotes. "You 'just stared him down?' Pfah! You laughed, pally. _That's_ what you did. You cackled like a loon and widdle waddling Woger messed himself before what he thought was a madman. And you know what?" Nick felt a staggering urge to kick the door open, fling himself into the road and run. In a split second the clown had leaned fully over the middle of the car, forcing the driver to bunch reflexively against his door. Eyes wide and shining like blood—not green at all, how had he ever thought they were green?—the clown answered himself, "He was right."

In that instant Nicholas Olsen's environment all seemed to gain extra illumination, like a Lite Brite being turned on. He'd been so wrapped up in his story that he hadn't noticed the dull little changes to the world around him. Now he noticed them. The pine trees had all gone from green to purple and green. The yellow line separating the road had turned florescent orange. The clouds had all thinned and curved into nearly identical crescents smiling down at the car. His feet were on the seat and off the pedals and yet the vehicle was still driving smooth and straight down the barren road and picking up speed. The digital readout of the clock read the impossible time of six sixty-six PM. They had been driving for over and hour when they should have hit town in a mere twenty minutes. Most importantly, of course, the clown's smile had changed.

Throughout the entire trek, Nick had seen a mouth full of impeccable white and straight teeth in the man's human-sized mouth. Now, as the clown leaned ever closer, Nick saw that smile stretch to uncanny proportions and curl like a rotting fruit peel just under his hot coal eyes. The teeth were now nearly needle-like in their thinness, the gums holding the spindly things in place bared and candy apple red. The scalding, rainbow wire in the husband and father's head was hysterical now, lashing twisting, curling, snapping and growing in every direction. '_Not real. Not real. Can't be happening, this. This can't be happening. No. No no. A hallucination. A bad dream. Either way, jumping out the door to escape the not real psychotic clown is a good thing--.'_ Nick's hand brushed where the door handle used to be, only feeling smooth car interior. The handle, the window mechanism, and even the little cubby every car door had to stash maps and fast food straw wrappers in was gone.

Nick made a silent scream as he realized the inhuman jester was now all but on top of him, his gloved hands on the steering wheel and the headrest of the driver's seat respectively. "Not real? _Moi_? Oh, Nicky boy, Nicky J. Olsen, someone of your mental calibre knows so much better!" In half a blink the joker had the point of his sharp nose pressed against the ball of Nick's nose, red pinpoint irises piercing black orbs. "_Don't you?_"

'_No!_' "No!" In a lightning move Nick's hand vanished into his pants pocket and came out with the switchblade. The weapon went up to the hilt into the clown's forehead. Said clown blinked. Then giggled. Then laughed. Then cackled. Then made an atrocious, ear-splitting hyena shriek that could never be misconstrued as laughter, human, monster or otherwise. Watching Nick watch him, both listening to the heightening roar of the engine and the rapid fire beat of the human's heart, the joker reached up, grabbed the switchblade and pushed it all the way into his head until it vanished under the white veneer of his skin.

"_Yes_, sonny boy. Yes, affirmative, positive and confirmatory. You are crazy, Nick. Mad as a hatter, you are, but you just won't let it out. Never will either, save for giving people the crazy eye or fantasizing over how you'd kill your boss with one of his award frames. If I just leave you to your devices, why, you could get over this pink slip business as a cool as a cucumber, move to Pleasantville and never reach the level of insane brilliance available to you." Nick choked on air he couldn't get whilst scrabbling at the skeletal hand clamped around his neck. He barely felt the monster pinch the side of his face in a patronizing mother hen fashion. "And we can't have that can we?" He pulled this hand away, and through glazing eyes Nick saw him flick his hand to reveal his lighter. "Especially after you returned this baby to me. Have to return a good deed you know." Another sleight of hand and the lighter was gone. He winked at the nearly out man. "See you downstairs!"

Just like that he was gone and Nick was alone in the speeding car, gulping in oxygen. In any other story, or at least those Nick had read, this would be where he woke up, or realized the protagonist—him—was a schizo seeing and hearing things. This wasn't the case as all too immediately the road became vertical, shooting the vehicle up like a rollercoaster car. He kicked frantically at the doors and the windows, hearing the clown's maniacal laughing from the radio. Sweat sizzled out of him like mad and he unconsciously began to grunt and shriek as he banged at his glass and metal cage. Nothing. At the top of the rise Nick looked down through the windshield. Gasped. Turned off. Collapsed back in his seat. Didn't even stay awake to realize the car had tipped over and plummeted in.

XXX

The first thing he felt as he was dragged into consciousness was warmth. It was a kind of baking, summery heat that you knew would get you sunburned after an hour. Secondly, he felt the alarming absence of his clothes, up to and including his boxers. He knew this because the entirety of his chest, his legs and his manhood were lying heavy and sweaty against the hard smoothness of some polished floor. For one bizarre instant Nick felt an alarm go through him. He wondered frantically if it was one of those strange situations mothers told their kids not to get mixed up in. This thought was only reinforced when he tried to push himself up and he crumpled back to the ground he didn't see. The man was all but paralyzed. Drugging was just entering his mind when his memory clanged into him like a cartoon anvil.

The job, the car, the clown, the drive, the road, the _clown_, the rise, the _fall_..! Nick opened his eyes by sheer force of will, not wanting to see what he knew would be there. Timid as separate animals, the man's eyes bloomed open like little black and white buds. Sadly, the vision around him didn't give the same, therapeutic coma-inducing effect it had before. Caffeine seemed to have replaced his blood and he couldn't close his eyes again if he had rubber cement for eye crud. Fearing a certain supernatural harlequin would hear, Nick only mouthed the solitary thought running through his head. His sandpaper lips pantomimed, "_Please God no._"

There were no fire and brimstone, no evil little goblins with pitchforks, nor were there any souls screaming in torment, but his new domain was unmistakable just the same. Nick could smell the place, a constantly shifting stink of alcohol, chemicals, blood, fire, and greasepaint. More than the smell was the wire. As a matter of fact the wire had grown into the consistency of a log and was lying limp and content like a glutted anaconda in his mind. It was as if the energetic cord had absorbed the lunacy like a sponge and was happy to lay back and let the rest of Nick's head enjoy the ride without its assistance.

There was a withering dryness in the young husband and father as he shakily turned his head to gape at the single wall of madness before him. The tall, endless…_thing_…pulsed like a slow, content heartbeat. It was like an unfathomable wall that Nick knew stretched on forever and closed around him like a room at the same time. First it was the deepest darkest fullest black and with a pulse it was a swirl of rainbows, the dominant colors being purple, green, orange and flashes of white and red. Then back to black. The constants of the wall, whether onyx or a kaleidoscope, were the faces; or more specifically, the colossal, free-floating eyes and ruby-lipped smiles spotting the place.

Every eye featured a shining red iris and every smile was extended up and over like running taffy. The eyes were unblinking and constantly rolling and twitching in their non-sockets while the smiles gritted their wretched teeth together in snickers or opened in loud brays of cackling. It was utterly horrific. Granted, any outside viewer would see such a place as the results of a bad acid trip, nothing more than a cheap effect in a movie, but being there as Nick was, was the same thing as being injected with liquid fear. Everything, every last detail of the grins, the eyes, the colors, the stink, the heat, his nakedness, his utterly flaccid state all suffused him with dread.

Frankly, he felt like an acrophobe on top of the Empire State Building and he fought to stand and run to wherever there was to run to. After a few hellish seconds he wobbled to his knees and nearly knocked himself back over. Upon getting to his hands and knees—it was a strain just to push himself up under the weighty air of the place—every eye, and somehow the mouths as well, zeroed in on him like the features of a crowd watching a circus freak perform. Nick remained frozen like a deer in the headlights on his bare palms and knees, staring up owlishly at the mocking grins and gazes.

"You think it's funny?" Who said that? "You think _I'm_ funny, you dis-em-bodied imbeciles? You think this is the height of comedy?" Was _he_ saying that? Was he actually standing on his feet? "Is it hiiilarious? I'm backstabbed out of my job, get abducted by a, ah, reject from a Stephen King novel and get dropped into a Crayola-colored inferno, and _that's_ funny?" Nick felt his lips pull back like the peels of a rotted orange and for the first time he realized his teeth were quite jagged as his tongue dragged over their edges. In a deep, rabid howl Nick barked, "_Well, __**laugh**__ then you ignoramuses! Laugh on it and choke! Hell, when I wake up from this whole thing and I wind up dead in a ditch, you can laugh 'til your vocal cords pop and bleed! Ha! HA! __**HAA!**_"

The chubby snake of a wire seemed to wag its tail in a cheer and Nick felt the strongest compulsion to laugh himself. He wanted nothing more than to crack a face-splitting crocodile grin and guffaw along with the ongoing flock of smiles. Everything seemed riotous—AIDS, SIDS, car crashes, plane bombings, rape, murder, thievery, evisceration, abortions, electrocution, choking on chicken nuggets, being pecked to death by pigeons—everything was just _so funny_! It was a wonder why he hadn't spent his whole life laughing. Nick got as far as a single, "Ha-!", before he realized what a truly awful idea it would be to laugh there, then.

Laughing at anything from a pun to a dead baby joke in that place was a cataclysmically bad idea, as if a chortle of any kind there would initiate something terrible. Somehow a giggle there, even a rakish smile, was a rite of passage or a secret password that would start the real ball rolling. Nick immediately shot his hands to his face, his perspiring digits plastered to his mouth just in time. On top of whatever fear toxin was pumping in him alongside the caffeine, a trace of laughing gas concentrate was racing through him too. Every ticklish spot on him was being tickled, every solid gold joke he'd ever heard was dancing in his head, every grade A nutshot he'd ever witnessed was playing behind his eyes in high definition and it had never been harder in his life to keep from laughing.

"Hmmf! Hehemmf! Hehehehmmf! Hmmfhemmf!" His fingertips dug vigorously into his cheekbones, forcing his straining cheek muscles down to hide the smile from the watching eyes. As if to encourage him to join the party, the mouths laughed harder in a way that would rupture a human's larynx beyond repair. Nick gave the faceless features a mental middle finger and pressed his hands down harder.

"Oh, and you were so close to getting there yourself. But even the bright ones are stubborn these days. Every kid needs a little molding I suppose." That voice. _His_ voice. Hands still superglued to his mouth Nick whirled around on hot feet, gold hair fanning out like a tangoing woman's skirt.

'_Where is he? Where is he!?_'

"Marrrcooo!", the clown's voice echoed from every mouth, the walls pulsing with color.

Despite himself Nick muttered, "Puhluhh.", behind his muffling paws.

"_Marco_." The voice was all but touching the nape of his neck and he could swear he felt the brush of painted lips against the wavy hair covering it. Nick spun 180 degrees like a clockwork figure, black eyes wild and searching. Just the same jeering eyes and smiles and no specific jester--.

"Mmf. Owh. Owh!" Beneath the hot meat of his palms Nick felt hard, metal somethings nibbling at the corners of his mouth. He didn't bother to wonder the how's and why's of the things appearing there with his hands smothering his lips, but he still had to know what they were. Nick spastically moved his fingers over his face, being sure to freeze his mouth in a straight, automated line and felt. From what his fingertips could tell him there were two metal, pillbug-sized hooks looped into each corner of his mouth like fad piercings. "Ow!" The little bastards had bit him, or—or yanked at him. Nick felt an anticipating sting of fear as he looked down to see four, thin black chains draping down to the floor and trailing back behind him.

The chains tugged in a gentle, taunting motion, causing their tiny hooks to nip at his mouth again. Impossibly, Nick's eyes bugged wider as he gasped an inaudible, "No." Before he could finish the entire syllable the chains pulled taut and thrust Nick back by his head, a keening scream popping from his throat. Wherever the chains were pulling from seemed to maneuver to have a hook in each mouth corner and two pulling down on his lower lip to make him mimic a huge teeth-baring smile. His pink lips split and bled as the hooks bit in, Nick yanking at the chains in vain. He writhed against the impeccable floor as the eyes stared and the mouths laughed at him like a man doing a great shtick.

But all at once the floor wasn't a floor anymore, but fine, supple cowskin; the kind pricy leather gloves are made of. Nick had just enough time to notice the four giant fingers and the lone, massive thumb curling up to the invisible sky before he tried to spasm out of the hand. As expected of any bad dream, or situations that should be bad dreams, he hadn't stood a chance and the immense digits were crushed around his whole nude person like a straightjacket, only his shoulders and above poking out of the top of the fist. He was being compressed just short of not being able to breathe and he felt his stomach do gymnastics as the hand rose from the floor on a transmuting, purple-sleeved arm. Naturally, the chains grew with the arm, still taut and making him smile to painful proportions.

A groan drifted out from behind his bared teeth and he strained in the glove's hold, praying for some deux ex machina to come out of nowhere and smash the nightmare to pieces. "You're so deadset on this not being real, Nicky m'boy, and it really disappoints me! I'd be ready to squash you like one of those common slugs upstairs if I didn't see the _real_ you partying in the back of your head." Nick watched as the clown manifested out of one of the crazy walls, his enormous left arm reaching out and connecting to the glove the man was held in.

Straining under the uselessness of his lips, Nick managed, "Uh-utt… Utt are yoo talking uh-owt..?" The joker smiled down at him like a master musing over his puppy's giddy yapping.

"I'm talking 'uh-owt', you, compadre. About the real creature you keep sunken in the proverbial bay of your mind with cement shoes. You've always seen this real you as a pretty, pretty wire wiggling and flashing in the dark back of your brain. Once or twice you even let parts of it out to play like when you sent Roger out pissing in his panties or when you arranged that little accident for the mook that was dating and torturing your precious Jeannie back in high school. You liked playing with fire even in the wee years, didn't you?"

Nick shook his head against the pull of the chains and grunted in denial. He hadn't done anything to that boy, even if the bastard deserved it for the shiners he dealt out to Jean. Never laid a hand on him, let alone torched him. It was an accident at his house, he'd been smoking a joint, things had happened and the house went down in ashes. Everyone knew that.

No…

There hadn't been any evidence of marijuana in the house—as far as anyone knew, the asshole was drug-free. How could Nick know he was puffing unless he'd seen..? Unless he'd… '_Oh no._'

_Flick._

'_No, I would never have…_'

_Fshh._

'_I know I wouldn't!_'

_Fwooom._

That didn't mean he couldn't. "Ah, all those happy, youthful memories coming back to you, sonny? You have the crazy bugs nesting in your head, but this outer you, this," the joker squeezed Nick like a perfume pump, "this, Mr. Nice Guy shell that you show the world, and wifey and your little girl—it tries to buff out the real you like some nick in a piece of furniture. That's worse than murder, Nick. Denial is a sick practice and I won't have it from you. Why, if I didn't help you out now, who knows where you'd end up? In a perfect little house with a saccharine love life and a smart, loving daughter that'll someday turn you into a doting grandpa? All wine and roses, peaches and cream, dapper and dandy?"

The clown made a face like he'd taken a whiff of fresh dog squeeze. "Can we say _boring_ with a capital _bore_? Eeeyuch!" The joker flourished with his free hand and pointed at his catch. "You're meant for so much better. You're meant for radiance, for genius, for power, for chaos." The harlequin's brows shot up as if something had pinged on him. "That's just what you're supposed to be, Nick! An agent of chaos. An advocate for all the random, blind, injustice of the world. A comic that shows the teeming hordes of man what a miserable joke their existence is."

The hooks yanked at his mouth and forced Nick to turn and face the demon's giant countenance. Onyx eyes synched with huge, ruby orbs that swirled and dilated at intervals, the smile beneath them a hideous, toothy maw. Knowing it would be heard, Nick simply thought, '_Maybe I don't want to be any of those things. Maybe I'd be just as happy being an Average Joe worker bee._'

"Maybe." The joker brought Nick up to his face making him look like a child holding up an action figure. "But I wouldn't be. And that's what really matters, isn't it?" Nick grunted a very bad word at the behemoth and got another squeeze. "Language, _lang_uage, Mr. Olsen! Now I understand the transition from white collar ex-provider and family man to openly loony psychopath on a mission is a difficult one, so I want to make it as easy as possible for you." The joker brought Nick away from his face to show off his right hand. Nick watched as the clown popped his thumb, and his index and middle fingers shot out two replicas of the man's switchblade from the glove tips.

"The first and most important rule of proper maniacry is to have a dazzling smile. Not to say you don't have one already, but I want to make it even better." He snipped his knife fingers for emphasis and Nick felt his bones go to putty. "Besides, you'll thank me when you have this enhancement on hand and you get so absorbed in your work that you drop hygiene off the edge of the world. Sad fact with men who love their jobs, but the perks will more than make up for it. Promise." He snipped again and slowly reached the points towards Nick's waiting mouth.

Nick grunted and shrieked rabidly as he shook his head, willing the hooks to rip out of his lips so he could clench them tight. But the hooks refused to slice out of his countenance and merely held his mouth open for adjustment. "Auh! Auh! Ohnt! Ohnt, eese!", he pleaded. The joker was deaf to it and he giddily slipped the tip of one blade finger between Nick's parted teeth.

"You may feel a _slight_ sting." Without a second to think, the two finger blades snipped shut. Olsen's left cheek split. Blood gushed. Nicholas Olsen's memory went blank. Everything he was, every birthday, every story he'd read, every movie he'd watched, every test he'd aced, every kiss and lovemaking, every laugh he'd shared with his wife and daughter and best friend, every goodnight peck he'd given and received from his baby girl. Gone as quickly and cleanly as deleting a file from a computer.

The man who'd been Nicholas Olsen's expression went slack as blood ran from his face. His brain was filled only with gray and the one Sharpie black corner where the fat wire lay. The blackness began to leak into the mindless grey like an oil spill, the sizzling length of wire growing longer and fatter and so much brighter. Other than this, there was nothing but his inherent intellect left to float like a clump of lint for the wire to paw at. The joker smiled contently at the toy in his grip and jostled him lightly. The man's head nodded and shook obligingly, black eyes half-lidded and containing the sheen of a trademark schizophrenic killer: out of his gourd, sadistic and clever, but otherwise unresponsive.

"Aawww, you're like a baby Zodiac, aren't you?" The clown shook the man back and forth softly, the bleeder nodding noncommittally while his glimmering black eyes considered the giant holding him like a ragdoll. In his mind the clown could see the little guy's thoughts shifting from how he could dig the clown's massive red eyes out and squash them like pulpy, slimy pumpkins to wondering if he would look good with his sandy hair pulled back. "Adorable, really, you little jokester, but I can't have you being a cookie cutter nutjob murderer. You deserve better and I'd be ashamed if I put this whole song and dance to waste. So let's take the mental straightjacket all the way off shall we?"

The harlequin positioned his blades on either side of the unmarred cheek and--.

_SNIP!_

The rainbow wire didn't just grow, it exploded like an overfilled water balloon, splashing the electric colors of madness all over the inside of the mortal's skull. It saturated the man's every aspect including his intelligence, the drifting clump of genius expanding and sticking to the inside of the man's mind like a tie-dyed spiderweb. Sheer, uncut vividness erupted in the nameless man's head and shone out his eyes like lamps through windows. It was the clown's version of watching a baby being born. The human's bleeding, Glasgow mouth drew wide open in a silent yawn and a tiny sound like a dying cockroach's cry came from his throat.

His mind played a million visions and memories before him. He wasn't naked in the clutches of a giant, demonic, jester, nor was he in a pulsing, blinking, laughing hell. He was a little boy who'd witnessed his cackling father murdering his mother and felt the sting of a kitchen knife slice open his tiny, pink face. He was a loving husband who'd taken a shaving razor to his own face in a show of love to his card shark-carved wife. He was a sunny young man in a druggy neighborhood of other young men who slit his face after he fouled up a drug run. He was a father who never smiled until his chipper little girl cut his cheeks open with the grown up scissors to make him happy. He was a gangster who got a Black Dahlia job by an enemy's men.

He was a thousand and one children, teenagers and men who had mothers, fathers, strangers, friends, siblings, children, employers, employees and even animals cut a great big beautiful smile into their mugs. All thousand and one of them realized what they were meant to be after they smiled. Anarchy embodied. A personal, eternal and all-too-willing servant of bedlam in all its hilarity. So satisfying, so obvious and so utterly right.

Of course.

Of _course_.

_Of course!_

"Of course…", the still anonymous man whispered reverently. His obsidian eyes opened wide with nirvana-esque understanding and in the same blink he looked like the most hectic and most serene man in existence. "How did I miss this? How could anything else even, ah, _compare_ to it?", he seemed to ask the air more than his captor. Blood ran from his smile as he spoke and the clown nodded considerately.

"Nothing can, my dear man, nothing at all. But you don't have to look so grave about it." The bleeding man blinked and turned his sharkish eyes to lock with the joker's red ones.

"What do you mean?", he asked with all the awe of someone asking the time.

"Well, you make this revelation sound like some grim and gritty hoop-dee-doo when it's obviously a joyous occasion. I mean, why're you so serious? Everyone else is laughing!" To illustrate this the clown gestured to the gallery of cackling mouths and the nameless man seemed to consider this like a tourist observing the native customs.

"They are aren't they?"

"They certainly are. So get in on the joke and laugh." The anonymous man considered this for half a second before breaking into a maddening string of hyena banshee cackles, the clown quickly joining him. The man was in the middle of a particularly deep-breathed laugh when the caffeine zipping through his veins began to rapidly evaporate and the dimness of unconsciousness seeped into the edges of his vision. His next laugh turned into a yawn and the following chuckles dissolved into softening giggles. The man's eyelids began to droop and flutter and his tongue lapped halfheartedly at his sliced cheeks in a bid to stay alert. He didn't want to miss the party after all. "You go ahead and get some shut eye, pally. You'll need it to cope with those long, long years of insomnia coming up."

"But isn't the, ah," _yaaawwn_, "mmmain act coming on soon? I-I don't want to be _rude_ or anything." _Yaaw-haaw-haaawn_. The clown rested his knuckles against the floor and uncurled his long fingers to roll the man gingerly out of his hand. The bloody fellow landed on his side, his limbs sprawled away from his body.

"It's fine, keed. But before you konk out entirely you'll need a few things." Instantly the jester was human size and kneeling over the naked man like a knight, his coattails hanging limply. He slipped his gloved thumb and forefinger into his red-lipped mouth and plucked three small objects out like loose teeth. With his empty hand he picked up the bleeding man's right hand and deposited one trinket after the other into its palm. "You'll need this," the switchblade, "_definitely _this," the chickenscratched lighter, "aaand this, because you really need a J name." He promptly pinned a plastic nametag to the skin of his left pectoral, a string of blood splitting the chest muscle in two.

The nude man limply curled his fingers around the small weapons, the other hand tapping the impaling nametag fragilely. He smiled broadly, the open wounds expanding and bleeding faster. "Thanks. I, ah, ap-pree-ciate it. G'night Mr. Mountebank." Before silencing darkness completely overtook him, the man heard the clown's voice above the reverberating laughter:

"Not a problem, Mr. J."

And then there was oblivion.

XXX

_Fwa-THUD._

"…Ow." Everything swam in his skull like poisoned backwash in a glass. He planted his hands on the stained, grey carpet and pushed his torso up first, his face following after. Finally he opened his dark eyes to see a new cluster of stains where his face had been with what looked like white, black and red makeup coating the carpet. His gaze traveled curiously to his hands. Dark violet gloves sprouting from unbuttoned, purple sleeves. The sleeves grew into the lapel-breast of an open, violet trenchcoat that hung away from his chest. He cocked his head doggishly and wondered what the rest of him looked like.

He got to his feet—ooh, nice brown leather shoes—and looked down. The leather shoes're connected to the, _vio_-let pants. The violet pants're connected to the _green_ vest. The green vest is connected to the _pale_ shirt. The pale shirt's connected to the _az_-ure tie. The azure tie's around the _neh-_heck. The neck's connected to the _pain_-ted face. The painted face's connected to the _scah_-halp. The scalp's connected to the _green_ hair. He cocked a makeup clad brow and tugged at a thin coil of grass green hair. His black eyes flicked back and forth mechanically as he yanked the lock back and forth like the tassel of a graduation cap.

This kept the man—clown?—immensely intrigued for three minutes before his eyes glimpsed a mirror. It was a vanity mirror set in the dusty wood of a dresser, the kind that teetered back and forth on hinges. No less than five starburst cracks marred the glass. In the few smooth scraps of reflection left he saw his doppelganger gawking at him. "What are you looking at, handsome?" The other him mimicked the question, having the audacity to copycat his movements. The vibrant man stalked towards the mirror, the other clown growing closer. They shared the same awkward shamble that reminded the man of a toddler and he snorted a laugh at the resemblance. The reflection copied him.

"Well, aren't _you_ the picture of originality? Hmm?" He stood directly before the massacred mirror and analyzed the other clown's face. '_He is a looker, I'll give him that much_.' Not a scrap of the reflection's peachy skin showed on their faces; nothing but greasepaint. Huge splotches of black smothered the eyelids and sockets, alabaster white plastering the entirety of his face and a crescent of red encompassing his enormous smile. As a matter of fact it was probably the biggest smile he'd ever seen, but he couldn't place just _why_--. He blinked at the other clown and yawned his mouth open, feeling the extra tension of his facial editions drag on the corners of his mouth. Both clowns stuck out their tongues in ridicule. "Aaaah-ah-laah-ah-laaah! Heh-hah."

Another slow, wet blink. His tongue tapped against the sides of his mouth, tasting the makeup and feeling the raised, fleshy bumps of the scars. How long had those scars been there? They were beautiful things to be sure, with the same enhancing qualities of mascara on a lady's lashes. '_But how long have they been there? How did they get there in the first place? What came first, the chicken or the egg, or Colonel Sanders?_' "I remember now.", he nodded to his fractured self, "My shrink did it to me since his sessions never worked. I was so dee-pressed and drugs didn't help. The guy was a stickler for being the brain doctor who could cure any patient. When I, ah, refused to heal, he got a wee bit miffed and took his letter opener to my face. 'Now,' he said, '_Now_ you can't say I didn't put a smile on your sad sack face.' Never, ever, ever.

"Never. I really have to thank him—he did a world of good for me. Best treatment I ever had.", he informed his reflection with a sparkling smile. Well, it wasn't too sparkling, per se. More like the shine of very yellow, very sharply faceted gold. He licked the jagged razor edges of his teeth in a quick swipe, tasting blood as he did. '_Now was that mine or the owner of the apartment's?_' As if on cue he felt something _thwump_ weightily on his shoe. He looked down to see a hairy-knuckled hand sitting limply on the toe of his shoe. "Hmm." The purple garbed man dropped in a fast kneel and thrust his hands under the dresser, gloves clenching the fabric of the man or overly testosterone-laden woman's clothes. He yanked the hefty man—thank goodness for that—out from under the dresser in a cloud of dust.

For one odd instant he wished the man's face was fat and froggy and greasy. The instant passed and he was content to see a plain, mole-speckled, bushy browed man's face. The cadaver's eyes were slate grey and bulging with paralyzed fear, the corpse's mouth opened in a huge O of pain. The latter was split on either side with two neat, bloody smile curves that would never scar. They were too symmetrical to be done in the heat of the kill so how had he done it? His dark eyes flicked to the man's neck where a sizable chunk of meat and carotid artery were missing. White and red paint were smeared around the bite.

'_So, not my blood_. _Must've reapplied after the mess._', he thought absentmindedly as he tapped his painted chin. "Hellooo." Stapled to the man's bare, furry chest was a piece of lined paper. A significant blossom of blood nearly shrouded the blood written message, but the clown could read his own sloppy fingerpainting: **LEFT YOUR NAME IN YOUR CHEST. P.S. HAHAHA!**

"My name in my chest?" '_That's ridiculouser than usual. Of course I know my name it's…it's…_' He stood and put his hands on his hips, the tongue acting like a pendulum between his lips. He caught his reflection eyeing him smugly. "Hey, I know my own name! It's just slipped my mind for a second." '_Which is why you put it in your pocket, Glasgow._' Ooh, that was a cool name. That was probably his name. Yes. "No, I have a better name, I'm sure." That said the clown pulled open the left breast of his overcoat and took a second to gander at the array of pockets within.

Tiny ones, fat ones, tall ones, all with fun, fun, _fun_ looking shapes in them. Everything from knife shapes to gun shapes to Pez dispenser shapes. However the prized shape was a lumpy compilation of bulges in the topmost left pocket hovering over his left pectoral. His right hand dug greedily through the pocket pulling out a handful of things. An Altoids tin with HA-HA HO-HO HEE-HEE written on it in red marker: various poison pills. Two very sharp number two pencils: for magic tricks and signing autographs. A switchblade with a love-worn handle: one of his favorite art tools. A silvery lighter with the initials J.K. and "burn all" or "all burn" etched on it in Latin: he'd used his favorite switchblade to carve that tiny gem of truth. He kissed both weapons and finally wrapped his fingers around the prize at the bottom of the cereal box.

"Jackpot." He pulled the last thing out of the pocket and stared down at it appraisingly. In his hand was a simple red and white plastic nametag, the kind store clerks have pinned to their shirts and aprons. There were bloody fingerprints around its edges in a thin, coagulated frame. Printed along the top in Comic Sans MS font was **Hi! My name is:**

Below that, in childish fingerpaint writing, was:

**THE JOKER**.

Easy as pie. Or cake. Cakes could hide bombs better. Mmmhmm. "Joker. My name is Joker." The Joker clicked his tongue around his title, tasting it. It was delicious. "Joker. _The_ Joker. Joker, Joker, Jo-ho-ho-kerrr." The Joker turned to look at his reflection and raspberried at it. "Told ya' I knew it. So, now I have my name, what else do I need? Hmmmmm." He deposited the nametag, pencils and poison pills back in his pocket, juggling the lighter and switchblade. The switchblade clicked out with a heavenly _shnkt_ noise and he tapped his scars with it. "Hmm. Hmm. Hmmmm. I have my snazzy duds, my pretty face, my toys, my name, my cause." '_Cause? Cause why? Cause I can and so can everyone else!_'

Joker literally barked with laughter at the idea, pumping his fists with the blade and lighter in hand as he shook his head wildly. "Bruh! Brahr! Buhriberibruhrahahah! Ah hee hee ha-haaa!" His hair stuck to the paint on his face and he swept it back with the butt of one palm. "Yeaaah. Now what am I missing?" He planted his lighter-holding fist on the dresser to lean on, when his gloved knuckles landed on a newspaper. His eyes traveled absently to the page it was open to and instantly he realized what he was missing.

**SKIMWORTH PRESENTS NEW **_**Worthwhile Slim**_** CELLPHONE!**

So the paper claimed with a broad picture of the pudgy Roger Skimworth and some bland phone company bigwig next to him, both men smiling their smile-insulting smiles. The painted man's nose wrinkled in disgust. He did not like those grimy grins one bit; especially that Skimworth fellow's. He definitely needed an enhancement—heck, maybe some home improvement too. Joker flicked open his lighter and let it burn through the paper and begin to conflagrate over the wood of the dresser. He tucked the lighter and switchblade back in his pocket and noted aloud, "I could _really_ use a cellphone." Before exiting the bedroom he stood on the mattress and tore off the smoke detector. After closing the bedroom door behind him he repeated the action with every other detector and tossed them in the kitchen's small freezer.

He ate his host's last three Krispy Kremes and half a bag of ground coffee beans in a Jolt soda for breakfast. That done he skipped merrily out of the apartment and down the fire escape to its last level. He crouched down and eyed the rusty coating on the ladder steps to the ground. "Well, that doesn't look safe at all. Can't have people running down this thing and getting tetanus." With well wishing in his heart, the Joker promptly hopped down and clung to the lower half of the ladder and jumped on it as hard as he could. Two jumps and the thing tore off with a metallic clang and clatter onto a bunch of tin garbage cans. Nobody even looked out their windows considering the racket of the traffic and the odd gunshot of two.

Good old reliable…where was this again? His mind drifted back to the newspaper he'd just used for fire fodder. It had been the Gotham Gazette, of Gotham City…Gotham City… Oh, who cared what state it was in, he loved it anyway. On his way to the car he'd stolen, the Joker thought he saw a flash of purple that didn't belong to him. He stopped and stared at the street corner for a second, absolutely positive he'd seen some bright, colorful something there…_something_… It wasn't important.

He hopped through the broken-in window of his car Duke boys style and drove off to get his phone, passing the performing clown on the street corner.

Author's Note: Lewis was taken from the Harley Quinn comic book series and the various names in the guessing game were taken from various alter egos of the Joker and/or names of actors playing him.


End file.
